Thread: The End of The WalMart Era (FINALLY!)

I no longer shop there, been about 3 years. We owned a furniture shop in a smaller town and biz went way under because of a new larger Wal-mart. So now I make it a point to support the mom and pop stores.

Originally Posted by sippy

What I love about Costco is that the CEO, Jim Sinegal, only pays himself about $350,000 a year, and they are the 4th largest retail store in the world.

Incredible.....To give you guys some perspective, the average CEO earns about $9.6 million a year. And for the top 100 corporations (which includes WalMart), the average CEO pay is about $18 million a year......actually those #s may be a little outdated, so it is probably MORE than that.

{EDIT} Actually, from my data, WalMart is the second largest corporation in the world, behind General Motors, so I think it is safe to say that WalMart CEO's earn WELL ABOVE $18 million a year.....again, Sinegal earns $350,000

I know someone pretty well that works at my local Costco and she says that Jim Sinegal the CEO knows many of the employees on a - are you ready for this - first name basis. As far as I know, Costco has NO minimum wage employees. Company pay structure/policy is to pay well beyond that to attract quality workers that will take the job seriously and stick around long enough to become very productive. Way to go Mr. Sinegal - prove the Walton family wrong, wrong, wrong!

Oh BTW, the estimate of CEO compensation/owner's net worth with respect to the Walton family:

'He left his ownership in Wal-Mart to his wife and their children: S. Robson "Rob" Walton, John T. Walton, Jim Walton, and Alice Walton. Rob Walton succeeded his father as the Chairman of the Board of Wal-Mart, and John was a director until his death in a 2005 plane crash. The others are not directly involved in the company (except through their voting power as shareholders). The Walton family held 5 spots in the top 10 richest people in the United States until 2005. Two daughters of Sam's brother Bud Walton, Ann Kroenke and Nancy Laurie, hold smaller shares in the company and are also billionaires in their own right.'

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton

I have not been in a store for over 2years, I manage to survive. They affected my life very personally. What these people will do to achieve their goals is amazing and usually underhanded.

Originally Posted by caasduit

I have not been in a store for over 2years, I manage to survive. They affected my life very personally. What these people will do to achieve their goals is amazing and usually underhanded.

Amen.

I watched them come in before putting in one of their "superstores" and not only find out what stored were in the area, bit also scout out what they were selling and for how much, even going into the shops if they did not have advertisements.

They proceeded to take this information and use it to carry things that they usually do not stock, take (sometimes severe) losses on this inventory, and hold that inventory and price point until the pre-existing little shop curled up and died, at which point they put the remaining inventory on clearance and stop carrying it.

THEN they had the gall to personally offer the now trashed small business owners jobs in related departments as a "community service."


In less than 8 years (and three Wal-Marts later, one of which was pretty literally abandoned to open a "supercenter") an entire city went from a small town mentality where you couldn't think about doing something wrong without it making it back to your family (I was young enough that it making it back to parents or grand-parents could be a scary prospect), most folks knew most folks, and there was VERY little poverty, to a smelly, dirty, run down city that is so full of illegals, small time gang wannabe vandalism and violence, poverty, and depression/apathy that I cant even visit it anymore because I leave so extremely saddened by the loss of hope.

Have you guys seen Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price?
It's a really good doc. It was on one of the movie channels last month.

Here's a link
http://www.walmartmovie.com/

Yep, I am proud to state I have not set foot in a Walmart or Sam's store for four years now and whenever possible I discuss Walmart with my customers and ask them to boycott the store as well.

I have always hated Walmart and have avoided it like the plague. Nothing would make me happier than to see Walmart go under and also Sam's Club. They knocked out a lot of family run businesses in my area also.
I just hope that article is correct.

we shop at jewel, and have had to endure very rude non english speaking people until recently. we just got a walmart in our town. i have never even been in it but there are now very few non english speaking people at jewel. so wal mart does serve a purpose.... maybe ICE can set up an office there, just a thought.

There needs to be a huge ICE office in every state.